It was once a matter of personal preference. Now it’s part of the sustainability story.
Do you prefer the uniform shape, colour, ease of the plastic fantastic, or was the distinctive aroma of pine sap and rustle of pine needles a defining characteristic of your Xmas experience? Well now there’s the ethical question to add & as living rooms fill up around the county which option is better for the planet?
The Observer asks:
Should we give fake trees the chop?
They spend a season or two in your living room, and a lifetime in landfill. Lucy Siegle turns out the lights on artificial trees.
Christmas is surrounded by myths. We’ll just confine ourselves with debunking one here today: that fake trees are a more ecologically sound totem of the festive season than their real, predominantly Norwegian spruce, counterparts.
We can see why it arose in the first place. The real Christmas tree has had rotten environmental press: badly grown, in a monoculture that leaches all nutrients from the soil. Some growers have resorted to pesticides and even apparently colourants to spruce up firs ready for the small window of sales opportunity.
Here’s the link to the full article.
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